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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046441">the air we breathe</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedisasternerd/pseuds/thedisasternerd'>thedisasternerd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>heavy blue [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dreams and Nightmares, Force Visions, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Horror, M/M, Post-Order 66, Pretty much all hurt, Symbolism, The Force, Unreliable Narrator, a fuckton of metaphors, and only a small amount of comfort, but mind, heavy imagery, it's not awful</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:48:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedisasternerd/pseuds/thedisasternerd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"...You being here is already enough to endanger Luke, try not to attract any more attention to yourself, <em>Obi-Wan Kenobi</em>. Or should I say, High Jedi General, <em>sir?”</em></p>
<p>He flinches, violently, not so much from the mocking tone but from the words, spat out like curses. Owen doesn’t say anything more as he walks away.</p>
<p>Owen’s right. Those words are curses, a blight on the galaxy. He wonders how many more people sit, scared, helpless, and raise their fists to the sky, his name dripping like venom off their tongues, corrosive, burning away everything in its path.</p>
<p>He heaves in a shaking breath, gets up, and walks.</p>
<p>---<br/>A study of the conscience, in dreams.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>heavy blue [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>250</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the air we breathe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was meant to be something cold and beautiful, turned out I had to add in horror as well. If you wanna ask about the metaphors and imagery, feel free to do so, I am more than happy to discuss.<br/>The soundtrack to this was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtf7vfV3hMw">The Air We Breathe by Da Voile</a>. Haunting and beautiful, highly recommend.<br/>This fic, although perfectly readable as a standalone, draws a lot of parallels from the other works in this series, so if you're interested, check them out :)<br/>As (almost) always, this work is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. This work is also the result of me having a mental breakdown and the last fuckin' episode of tcw which broke my heart completely and utterly.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s silent.</p>
<p>Incomprehensibly so.</p>
<p>It’s oppressive, this silence. It holds the weight of <em> emptiness</em>, of death, of the endless abyss that he can’t reach. It’s too heavy, it crushes his soul, this silence. It’s the sound of pain too great to bear, this silence.</p>
<p>So among all the death, the destruction, the horror and the mind-numbing betrayal - the silence is the worst.</p>
<p>It’s cold at night, even in the middle of the desert. Empty, too, save for the shifting sands and the cold, merciless stars wheeling above his head. Empty, save for the mindless Krayt dragons and vicious Tusken raiders wandering far away. It’s empty, save for the lone, broken soul standing in tattered robes on an unfeeling dune.</p>
<p>He can’t even hear himself breathe. He can see it, the puffs of white that slip past his lips, the last dregs of his soul leaving him. He can feel it, the stabbing pain in his heart with every inhale and every exhale and every time he holds his breath. </p>
<p>The wind brushes over him, ice-cold fingers reaching for his throat. Oh, how he wishes they would choke him. Put him out of his misery. Let him not hear this awful <em>silence</em> any more. Set him free, let the chains of life and duty bind only his skeleton to this world. Let his soul float upwards and either drown in the sky or burn up in the atmosphere, one last flare, one last scream.</p>
<p>He looks longingly into the abyss, and the abyss stares back at him.</p>
<p><em> Set me free, </em>he begs the stars. </p>
<p>They don’t answer, just glitter silently, cold, watching him like pitiless eyes in a black void. </p>
<p>He should’ve expected the rage. The hot, burning <em> (burning-) </em> rage, filling him like molten, toxic lead, hot enough to annihilate him and leave only a charred husk of who he once was. It passes through him, setting his soul on fire one last time, the final spark before all that is left is dust. Then, he exists no more, Obi-Wan Kenobi is <em> no more</em>.</p>
<p>He stares up at the sky and screams as the last of his light leaves him, leaving behind ashes that cannot be brought back to life, the used-up remnants of something that <em> existed </em>but no longer does.</p>
<p>His eyes itch. He doesn't care.</p>
<p>“Let me go!” He yells, falling to his knees, the tears scalding as they burn passages down his face, leaving shiny pink scars in their wake. “Let me <em> go!” </em></p>
<p>His voice echoes in the silence, a brief respite in the cavernous emptiness, <em> let me go, me go, go, go, oh… </em></p>
<p>“Let me go,” he sobs, “<em>Please</em>.”</p>
<p>The silence doesn’t answer. Only a krayt dragon howls in the distance.</p>
<p>Then, all he hears is his own sobs. He tries to suck the freezing air in, but it drowns in his tears, bubbles of nitrogen-blue trapped in water. He chokes, coughing, <em> drowning- </em></p>
<p>The sand is rough under his hands. It's not the nice, soft sand of Naboo. This sand cuts his palms, grazes his knees, this sand is full of shards of lost memories that cut like pieces of coloured glass. This sand is full of molten dreams, scraps buried long ago.</p>
<p>He falls forward, curling in on himself, away from the judgement of the heavens. They cannot, should not, see his pain, his pitiful state. He does not want their condemnation, their unfeeling gazes as they sentence him to his eternal punishment, this imprisonment for his sins. His destiny is already infinite sadness; his feet tread the paths at the edge of the galaxy, where no-one knows him, not even himself.</p>
<p>He who is no longer Obi-Wan Kenobi falls to his side, the sand always shifting underneath him, and weeps.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <em> He’s in the rocking boat again. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Nothing has changed. Above him, the storm clouds still hang, dark and heavy and bloated with rain. The storm has already passed, leaving only deafening silence that is louder than any clap of thunder, the air thick with it.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Far away, on the horizon, the sun is setting in a crown of saturated carmine, the clouds around it dripping with sanguine-red. The water, once clear and blue, is black in this light. Black and clouded and a bottomless abyss.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Its surface is smooth, unwrinkled, like a mirror in the darkness, reflecting back vaguely disturbing shapes that you wish you didn’t see. Instead of seeing yourself in it, your face, hair, shoulders - you see something else, something different, something unsettling. You see the side of yourself that you only let out at night, the shadows of your soul slipping out through the cracks in your mask. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Despite everything, he leans over the side and, shuddering, dips his fingertips into the water. He unbalances and falls to the side, so his entire hand ends up in it. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> It’s warm, silky against his skin, gently lapping against his wrist. For some reason, it reminds him of the way blood oozed between his fingers when he tried to stop the bleeding of a wound- </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He yanks his hand out, horrified. But the liquid on his hand is clear, somehow. He hurriedly wipes it on the side of the boat, the rough wood scraping against his skin. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The water is calm, unnaturally so. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with it, but it scares him. It sends chills down his spine, and he thinks - this is the ocean of the dead, full of empty souls and the bright-eyed ghosts alike. </em>
</p>
<p>Coward<em>, comes the next realisation</em>, <em>another stab to the heart, </em>You killed so many, you could at least look them in the eyes, see yourself in them, see the monster you became, the monster that you are.</p>
<p>
  <em> His breath hitches, throat closing up as he eases his arm back over the side of the boat, letting his hand trail into the warm wetness again. The fear crawls up his throat, bitter and cloying like the smell of blood, coppery on his tongue. </em>
</p>
<p><em> Then, he feels the familiar brush of fingers against his palm. His head jerks up, the name already forming on his lips, but a scream comes out instead. The fingers grip his wrist with an iron strength and he’s pulled in, into the blood-stained water, thrashing, mouth still open as he yells but no sound comes out, drowning in the silence, the water rushing in. He stares, and in the red light shining through the blackness, he sees Cody, Cody, </em> Force<em>, Cody with empty eyes and his fingers tight around Obi-Wan’s wrist, the two of them drowning together. Cody, who’s chanting words Obi-Wan doesn’t hear, can only see viscous bubbles rising from his mouth, but he knows what they are, what they sound like, the hoarse whisper of multitudes, of </em>good soldiers follow orders, good soldiers follow orders…</p>
<p>
  <em> Then Cody is gone, and he is no more again, drowning in blood, staring into yellow eyes.</em>
</p><hr/>
<p>He wakes up with a gasp.</p>
<p>The sand is hard and unforgiving under him. Above his head, twin suns are already high in the sky, beating down yet more heat.</p>
<p>He groans. There’s sand in his mouth, too, coarse and grating. He manages to get an elbow under himself and spits, jerking away when he tastes the blood and sees it flecking his saliva. </p>
<p>The world tilts on its wonky axis as he sits up, his ears ringing. He looks down, half expecting to be caked in dried blood, and slumps in relief when all he sees is the tattered brown of his robes. </p>
<p>It takes him a few minutes, but he manages to get to his knees and then, agonisingly slow, up onto his feet, swaying in the wind.</p>
<p>“You know, I almost thought you were dead, until you started screaming.” Owen Lars says from behind him.</p>
<p>He startles so badly that he promptly falls over again, onto the raw skin of his palms. He curses in three different languages and turns himself over so he’s facing Owen, if sitting down in a parody of his cross-legged meditation position. Owen looks down at him, eyes flinty and cold, just like everything else.</p>
<p>“My apologies.” He rasps, voice like broken glass, all sparkling sharp edges and bleeding mouth.</p>
<p>Owen snorts and turns away.</p>
<p>“Next time, do it at home, where no-one can hear. You being here is already enough to endanger Luke, try not to attract any more attention to yourself, <em> Obi-Wan Kenobi</em>. Or should I say, High Jedi General<em>, sir?” </em></p>
<p>He flinches, violently, not so much from the mocking tone but from the words, spat out like curses. Owen doesn’t say anything more as he walks away.</p>
<p>Owen’s right. Those words are curses, a blight on the galaxy. He wonders how many more people sit, scared, helpless, and raise their fists to the sky, his name dripping like venom off their tongues, corrosive, burning away everything in its path.</p>
<p>He heaves in a shaking breath, gets up, and walks.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <em> Obi-Wan wakes up in his bunk in the Negotiator. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> It’s warm, with Cody next to him, snuffling softly into the pillow they’re forced to share. Obi-Wan doesn’t mind too much, since he usually ends up on Cody’s chest, sprawled out on top of that solid mass. Cody runs hot, like a space-heater, Obi-Wan thinks fondly, letting his fingers twitch idly on Cody’s shoulder. That gets a sleepy grumble out of the man, his arms tightening around Obi-Wan. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He blinks as he remembers his dream. It was an odd one, but not something he’s unused to. Odd and full of aching sadness, even if he can’t quite place what it was. But he can breathe now. He’s safe, Cody’s here. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He rolls over, so that Cody’s hands are over his abdomen, splayed out, skin to skin. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He shivers, his own hands moving to cover Cody’s. He traces their roughness, the callouses, the lines of the veins there, the muscles and the bone. He looks down to see the contrast, white on dark- </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> There’s a line around his wrist. He squints at it, raises it up to his face. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> There’s blood around his wrist. It’s dried, flaky, and he doesn’t know where it came from. He gets up and goes to the fresher, turns the water on - but it doesn’t come off, no matter how much he scrubs. Panicking a little now, he glances up and catches sight of himself in the mirror - and it’s not him, well, it’s him, but he’s not looking at Obi-Wan Kenobi anymore. He’s looking at someone with eyes that are the hollowness left after glass is broken in, a barrier gone, letting everyone see the emptiness inside. Eyes that haven’t been boarded up yet, leaving the black hole of pain open for everyone to see. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He stumbles back. His hands are wet, drip drip drip, droplets splattering onto the floor, red on white. The sink is stained red, too, charred with the black of dried blood around the edges.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. It’s silent, again, save for the drip drip drip of blood. He totters back into the cabin, and Cody’s sitting on the edge of the bed, empty eyes, empty face, empty soul, hands folded professionally in front of him, back straight, empty, empty empty- </em>
</p>
<p>“Good soldiers follow orders.” <em> Cody says, looking straight at him. </em></p>
<p>“Good soldiers follow orders.” <em> Cody murmurs, soothing, as his hands, coated in blood, come up and cradle Obi-Wan’s face, smearing hot stickiness there.  </em></p>
<p>“Good soldiers follow orders.” <em> Cody whispers against his skin. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> He can’t  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> breathe a </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> ny </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> more. </em>
</p><hr/>
<p>He’s scared to sleep now. But he has to, eventually.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <em> -Can’t breathe, not safe. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Where- </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Where’s- </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Anakin?</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>...<em>That's Rex, smiling, but then there's Cody, behind him, smiling, eyes gold-</em></p>
<p>
  <em>-Anakin?</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Someone hands him his lightsaber - Anakin? Qui-Gon? Cody? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He brings it down in a sizzling blue arc. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Screaming. </em>
</p><hr/>
<p>The caves offer little comfort, at first. They’re cold, at least, dry, sand shifting with the tendrils of wind that occasionally wind through the passages. </p>
<p>But then he finds it, a cavern. It too, is silent, but this silence is transparent, a calm veil, not thick and heavy like a burial shroud.</p>
<p>Here, he sinks down, and finally sleeps. Here, he finds them again.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <em> He sits in the rocking boat once more. </em>
</p>
<p><em> Around him, the blue sky is endless, the water shimmering cyan under it. The storm is on the horizon, far away, bruises at the edge of the sky. </em> <em>He finally feels calm, the tension easing a little. He reaches up and flicks his padawan braid onto his back, its weight making his heart ache a little with lost memories. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> He squints up, against the sunlight, feeling the boat rock gently. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “So you have finally found peace.” Qui-Gon murmurs. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Obi-Wan startles, eyes flying open. His old master smiles at him, gentle, hair falling around his shoulders. Just like always. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “For now, at least, Master.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> There’s a moment of silence, filled by the gentle slap of the water against the sides of the boat. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I’ve missed you, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon’s smile turns melancholic. “It has been a long time.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “And I you, Master.” Obi-Wan rubs the back of his neck, awkward. “It really has." </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “He’ll find you, you know.” Qui-Gon says suddenly, eyes as blue as the depths of the ocean around them. “He will. He’s already on his way.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He gestures down, into the water. Obi-Wan looks in the direction he's pointing, and can just about make out a dim figure. </em>
</p>
<p>“<em>Cody?"</em> <em> he breathes. </em>“Cody?”</p>
<p>
  <em> Qui-Gon is no longer there when he whips his head around to stare at his old master, confused. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The boat rocks, empty. </em>
</p>
<p>“<em>Cody.” He whispers instead, and gazes into the water, his hand outstretched. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> The water is cold under his fingertips, nothing like the unpleasant warmth of the sea of blood before. It's like the water he would drag his hands through when he was a youngling - the clear streams in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, the soft, mellifluous bubbling of the fountains themselves, the water cool against his skin. He would sit on the marble ledges, often, gazing into the water, feeling its power, its vivacity, coursing through him like a current, made of the brightest blue.<br/>
</em>
</p>
<p><em> Here, the water is different, calm, clear enough so that he can see the figure coming up almost lazily to the surface, and it's </em>Cody, Force, it's Cody.</p>
<p>
  <em> He laughs, a little hysterical, but the sound cuts short at the sight of Cody blinking water out of his eyes, paddling awkwardly in the ocean. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> "You look like jailbait." Is the first thing Cody says to him - or, well, the first thing he registers, his ears still ringing - squinting at him in the sunlight. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Obi-Wan reaches out, and Cody grabs his hand, letting himself be hauled up and into the boat. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Obi-Wan doesn't really know what happens, but he's breathing, in, out, in, out, then Cody puts his hand, dry and blessedly cool, on his cheek. He calls Obi-Wan his Jedi, smiling dopily, his hand slipping down to tap at Obi-Wan's heart. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> "Love you." Cody murmurs, his other hand coming up to cradle Obi-Wan's face again. Obi-Wan covers both of Cody's hands with his own, gripping tightly, scared that if he lets go, Cody will be gone and he'll be choking again- </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> "Shhh," Cody whispers, holding him close. "I'll find you, I promise." </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> They topple into the water, together. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> "I'll find you." Cody's eyes say, and everything fades to black. </em>
</p><hr/>
<p>“I said I’d find you.” Cody mumbles, months or maybe years later. “And so I did.”</p>
<p>Obi-Wan can breathe, here, cradled in Cody’s arms. He looks up, wisps of his husband’s dark hair getting into his eyes, but he doesn’t care. He looks up at the blue, blue sky, Cody warm and solid and near, and finally <em> breathes </em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>please leave kudos and comments, they keep me writing and make my day :)<br/>I love hearing from y'all, feel free to drop by <a href="https://thedisasternerd.tumblr.com">here</a><br/>thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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